From Uk came this news that scientists at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK had successful create a prototype robotic "heart" that runs on human urine,
fabricated with a 3D printer. A full working robot is still under
development.According to source , researchers built only the heart itself out of a
rubber-like 3D printed material known as TangoPlus, and demonstrated its
ability to charge up to 3.5 volts and perform 33 pumps using just 2
milliliters of "fresh" human urine. But they have ambitious ideas for a
future fleet of ecologically-friendly robots, or EcoBots, "powered by
energy from waste collected from urinals at public lavatories."
"powered by energy from waste collected from urinals at public lavatories."
As the scientists wrote in their paper on the demo heart, published in the December issue of the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics:
"The energy harvested could be used by the EcoBot to perform sensing
tasks such as monitoring air quality and pollution levels, and a number
of such EcoBots could form a distributed mobile sensor network within a
future city environment." But the researchers are still a ways out from
that reality. As they readily admit in their paper, their urine-powered
robot heart achieved an energy conversion efficiency of only 0.11
percent, which "appears very low." However, as they also add, the heart
is just a "'proof-of-concept' prototype of its kind, and as yet no
effort has been made to investigate how it might be improved to give
greater efficiency." The researchers also say they have some ideas on
how to squeeze more energy out.
The demo heart uses microbial
fuel cell technology, in which bacteria and other microorganisms are
stored in a battery-like device produce electrons as they digest and
metabolize their own food. The group has also been pursuing other urine powered electronics for years, even demonstrating a urine-powered cell phone
last summer. Their work is funded in part by a $100,000 grant from the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.DETAILS HERE
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